Estimates of years of life lost due to obesity were higher and more accurate when using WHtR compared with BMI, Margaret Ashwell, PhD, of Oxford Brookes University, and colleagues reported at the European Congress on Obesity in Liverpool in England.

"The use of WHtR in public health screening, with appropriate action, could help add years to life," Ashwell said in a statement. "If health professionals included this simple measurement in their screening procedures, then many years of productive life could be saved."

Earlier work by Ashwell and colleagues has shown that WHtR is a better predictor of cardiometabolic risk than BMI, and they decided to further investigate its potential in determining mortality risk.

They compared the effect of central obesity -- measured by WHtR -- and total obesity -- as measured by BMI -- on life expectancy, expressed as years of life lost.

They created a Cox proportional hazards model using data from the Health Survey for England and the Health and Lifestyle Survey, calculating years of life lost at ages 30, 50, and 70 by comparing the life expectancies of obese patients with those lives at optimum levels of BMI and WHtR.

Overall, they found that mortality risk was associated with BMI, but WHtR estimates were higher and appeared to be a more accurate indicator of mortality risk.

For example, a 30-year-old man with a BMI in the highest category -- over 40 kg/m2 -- has a years-of-life-lost value of 10.5 years, but as measured using the WHtR method, he has a value of 16.7 years, the researchers reported.

A 30-year-old woman in this most severe category of obesity based on BMI has a years-of-life-lost value of 5.3 years, compared with a value of 9.5 years when using the most severe category of WHtR.

A 50-year-old man in the most severe category of BMI has a years-of-life-lost value of 9.7 years, compared with 12.1 years when using the most severe category of WHtR.

And a 50-year-old woman in the most severe category of BMI had an estimated years-of-life-lost value of 5.1 years, but with the most severe category of WHtR, that estimate is 8.2 years, they reported.

Ashwell and colleagues said the results support the message, "Keep your waist circumference to less than half your height." Also, they wrote, the use of WHtR in public health screening could help add years to life.

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